it? She was both nun
and wife. If fault there was, it was as wife, in immuring herself in a
convent and denying the marriage. It should have been openly avowed; the
denial of it placed her in a false position, as a fallen woman. Yet, as
a fallen woman, she regained her position in the eyes of the world. She
was a lady abbess. It was impossible for a woman to enjoy a higher
position than the control of a convent. As abbess, she enjoyed the
friendship and respect of some of the saintliest and greatest characters
of the age, even of such a man as Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny.
And it is impossible that she should have won the friendship of such a
man, if she herself had not been irreproachable in her own character.
The error in judging Heloise is, that she, as nun, had no right to love.
But the love existed long before she took the veil, and was consecrated
by marriage, even though private. By the mediaeval and conventional
stand point, it is true, the wife was lost in the nun. That is the view
that Abelard took,--that it was a sin to love his wife any longer. But
Heloise felt that it was no sin to love him who was her life. She
continued to live in him who ruled over her, and to whose desire her
will was subject and obedient, according to that eternal law declared in
the garden of Eden.

Nor could this have been otherwise so long as Abelard retained the
admiration of Heloise, and was worthy of her devotion. We cannot tell
what changes may have taken place in her soul had he been grovelling, or
tyrannical, a slave of degrading habits, or had he treated her with
cruel harshness, or ceased to sympathize with her sorrows, or
transferred his affections to another object. But whatever love he had
to give, he gave to her to the end, so far as the ideas of his age would
permit. His fault was in making a nun of his wife, which was in the eyes
of the world a virtual repudiation; even though, from a principle of
sublime obedience and self-sacrifice, she consented to the separation.
Was Josephine to blame because she loved a selfish man after she was
repudiated? Heloise was simply unable to conquer a powerful love. It
was not converted into hatred, because Abelard, in her eyes, seemed
still to be worthy of it. She regarded him as a saint, forced by the
ideas of his age to crush a mortal love,--which she herself could not
do, because it was a sentiment, and sentiment is eternal. She was
greater than Abelard, because her love was